OCR Text |
Show 6 regarding the existence of such a body of water came from the Domingues- Escalante expedition of that year. Accounts of the geographic exploration of the Great Salt Lake ( Miller, 1966) indicate that Padre Escalante entered the Basin from the southeast in 1776. However, there is no evidence that they discovered the peculiarity of the closed drainage basin of the Great Salt Lake. From about 1820 to 1835, the northern and broader portion of the Basin was gradually explored by white fur trappers who learned of the closed drainage of the " inland sea." The first clear conception of the hydrography of the Lake and its drainage was reported by Captain John C. Fremont in his " Report of the Exploring Expedition of the Rocky Mountains in 1842." In recent years the natural features of the Lake have been significantly affected by the Southern Pacific Railroad causeway and the Antelope Island Roadway. On August 16, 1955, Southern Pacific Transportation Company obtained an easement from the State of Utah and, in 1956, began construction on an earth- fill causeway across the northern part of Great Salt Lake to replace the wooden trestle used earlier to support the railroad tracks. The easement, which provided for the causeway, came under the jurisdiction of the Office of Defense Mobilization, which considered the causeway a strategic structure for national defense because of the major east- west railroad involved. As a strategic defense structure, it was required to be constructed as a solid rock- fill causeway with only two 15- foot culverts. The division of the Lake into two separate arms has prevented equalization of brine minerals causing the concentration of the North Arm |